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Friday, 15 November 2013 - He picked on me

 
 
I stepped outside for lunch today to find this mob loitering in front of my office building - news crews from pretty every news channel we have.
 
They were waiting for this dude on the left to come out - Jonathan Martin of the Miami Dolphins. He's been making headlines for the last couple weeks over his accusations of harassment by fellow Dolphins teammates, chiefly this dude on the right - Richie Incognito. I haven't been following the story too closely, but this article here sums it up and includes video of him walking through the media scrum into my building to meet with his lawyers (there are several law firms occupying the floors immediately below mine). Although defended by other Dolphins players, Incognito has since been suspended after an outrageous voicemail surfaced that he sent to Martin back in April which included a racial slur and a death threat. It sounds like he has some serious anger management issues. His nine-year professional career has so far included fights, suspensions, an arrest for assault, head-butts, taunting fans, spitting on opponents, anger management treatment, and a dismissal from his first NFL team. Prior to that he was kicked out of two colleges hahaha! What an idiot. Not that I'd say that to his face ;) It's staggering to think this man's salary is currently $4 million, divided between 16 regular-season games that take place between September and December. $4 million for four months of 'work'.

Saturday, 16 November 2013 - Still spectacular

 
 
Last year Kristina and I went to see the annual Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall in Midtown Manhattan. On that occasion we paid for the tickets, but this year Kristina scored them for free through her work. Nice! I went into detail about all this last time, but in a nutshell, the Christmas Spectacular is a revue show that has been performed here every Christmas season since 1933.

 
 
The show features over 140 performers, the main stars of which are The Rockettes dance company.
 
And, of course, Santy Claus!

 
 
As per usual, photography is a no-no at these shows. Last year we happened to be sitting behind the sound engineer who kept telling me off hehe, so photos were limited. No such problem this year.

 
 
As well as the lavish sets, costumes, singing and dancing, the show includes 3D videos (hence this shot looks whack without 3D glasses)...
 
Ice Skaters, spinning round at a high rate of knots with bad news written all over it...
 
And even 'snow' (confetti) falling from the ceiling.

 
 
They even have live animals, including this camel! I work literally one block from Radio City and have seen these guys arriving in the mornings.
 
The camels are brought out for the Living Nativity scene - one of two that have featured in every edition of the show since the beginning.
 
There he is. Not a bloody clue what's going on, nor why they keep bringing him out here every day.

 
The other scene that has featured in every show for the last 81 years is the "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers", a choreographed version of the original Parade of the Tin Soldiers. And it's freaking cool!
 
 
Especially this bit, where they slowly but surely all fall down. In the full-size original of this shot I zoomed in on the Rockettes' faces and suffice it to say this is clearly harder to perform than it looks!
 
After 90 minutes of good entertaining fun, that was that. Video of the closing curtain here.

Tuesday, 19 November 2013 - My wheels

 
Hahaha! The randomness of this city never fails to amuse. I wonder if this person just walked off after locking up their wheelchair. I wouldn't leave it there too long else the wheels will go missing. In fact it's not an uncommon sight to nothing but a bicycle frame locked up to something after the wheels have been stolen along with the seat, the handlebars, and everything else left unsecured.

Thursday, 21 November 2013 - New York vs Chicago

 
 
This here is an institution in New York City: New York-style pizza. Insulting the pizza is akin to insulting the entire city. It is known for its large, wide, thin, and foldable yet crispy shape. Generally speaking I'm not a fan of thin-crust pizza, but even I will say this stuff is ah-mazing. Fun fact of the day: the first pizza establishment in the United States was opened in New York's Little Italy neighbourhod in 1905.
 
This here is an institution 800 miles away in Chicago: Chicago-style deep-dish pizza. It has a crust up to three inches tall at the edge and includes large amounts of cheese and chunky tomato sauce. I'm yet to visit Chicago and therefore yet to try its pizza, but I gotta say I'm sceptical.
 
And this here is Jon Stewart , host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - a late night satirical show on Comedy Central. Last week Stewart (a true-blue New Yorker) went on a rampage against Chicago and their pizza. It all started after the new One World Trade Center was officially acknowledged as the tallest tower in the country, overtaking Chicago's Willis Tower. Chicago disputes this however and a local news station retorted that at least Chicago's pizza is better. Recall what I said about dissing the pizza. So, it was on, in spectacular fashion with a big rant from Stewart which included such memorable one-liners as "When I look at your deep-dish f*ckin' pizza, I don't know whether to eat it or throw a coin in it and make a wish" hahaha! Video here and article here. Chicago did not respond well, as shown in this video and this article. Last night a truce was declared however: video here and article here :)

Friday, 22 November 2013 - JFK

 
 
"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. The TV has been littered this month with documentaries and new reports on JFK, his term in office, and ultimately his death. Given the amount of talk about him, I'm only just now coming to understand how much of an icon he was in the eyes of those who remember him. At the time of his death, three years after he was elected, he had the highest approval rating (85% I believe) of any president in modern times. 50 years on, the myriad of conspiracy theories surrounding his assassination are still rife, such as it was an inside job of some sort.

Kennedy was fatally shot by a sniper while traveling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, in a presidential motorcade in downtown Dallas (shown above) on his way to deliver a speech. Lee Harvey Oswald was subsequently arrested that same day for the president's murder. Oswald was armed with a rifle and positioned on the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository building where he worked, overlooking the motorcade. Kennedy was first hit at the base of his neck with the bullet then exiting through his throat and going on to hit the governor sitting directly in front of him. Kennedy can be seen in video footage holding his throat while Jacqui looked on in concern. Just seconds thereafter, Kennedy was hit again in the back of his head, blowing it apart (also captured on video). He was rushed to the nearest hospital but there was nothing they could do. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (they were big on middle initials back then apparently) who was elsewhere in Dallas at the time was sworn in as president just two hours later.

The first official investigation into Kennedy's murder by the so-called Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy and wounding the governor. The Commission's findings have proven controversial however and have been both challenged and supported by later studies. Such studies have concluded for example that there was more than one shooter, though the official evidence doesn't support this. Oswald himself denied absolutely everything, but was shot and killed (captured by TV cameras) just two days later while being transferred by the Dallas Police, leaving many questions unanswered. His shooter, Jack Ruby, was a local bar owner and later said he had been distraught over Kennedy's death. The Warren Commission concluded that Ruby also acted alone, though of course others have hypothesised that Ruby was part of a conspiracy.

Whatever the facts really are, we will likely never know the whole story with absolute certainty, and hence it continues to captivate the nation to this day.

Saturday, 23 November 2013 - Hot plonk

 
Yes it's that time of year again. The weather outside is frightful (below freezing at the moment, made worse by the wind chill), but the mulled wine is so delightful :) Recipe here.

Wednesday, 27 November 2013 - Thanksgiving, hopefully

 
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in the States, one of the major holidays of the year during which families get together all over the country and collectively devour close to 50 million turkeys at a cost of about $875 million. In fact, almost a third of the turkeys eaten annually in the US are consumed during Thanksgiving. So there you go. Kristina and I along with several million others will be attempting to travel today, in our case bound for San Antonio, Texas to spend it with Kristina's family. I say attempting because the weather promises to make that easier said than done. Where we are on the east coast is experiencing numerous flight delays and cancellations due to bitter winter storms pushing in from the Midwest. At the moment our flight is still scheduled to fly on time, but we'll see. Going back to Texas is always nice around this time of year given it's a shit-ton warmer down there than the near-freezing temperatures up here, but even Texas is "chilly" at the moment hahaha! Meanwhile the west coast appears to be basking in sunshine. Anyway, happy Thanksgiving y'all!

Monday, 2 December 2013 - Thanks indeed

 
As mentioned last Wednesday, we expected delays and we expected chaos, but by some Thanksgiving miracle (mostly luck) our commute to San Antonio was probably the smoothest one yet. The train to the airport was total chaos however with thousands of people trying to get out of town, made worse by a broken-down train in one of the tunnels. Regardless, we made it in one piece and look at the weather! Freezing in New York, not so much in Texas :)
 
And this was the reason for the season - Thanksgiving turkey!

 
 
Oh and to see the in-laws of course :)
 
Five-month-old Avery here got to meet Aunty Kristina for the first time.
 
Uncle Bryan on the other hand will no doubt turn out to be that one weird uncle we all have.

 
 
With Kristina in town, one of her best friends threw her a belated bridal shower as well. Belated because there was simply no time to throw such an event prior to our getting married back in May. We registered for a bunch of stuff in advance (mostly kitchenware) in preparation for our expected relocation to Texas in 2015 (more on that later). Many thanks to all from both of us!
 
Sweet, someone got us a turkey.

 
So that was that - good times :) Now everyone's attention turns to Christmas - ugh!

Wednesday, 4 December 2013 - Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree

 
 
Rush hour in Midtown Manhattan. It's always a mad house, but not this mad. Thousands upon thousands of people were packing the streets around the Rockefeller Center to catch a glimpse of the free entertainment (including Mariah Carey) and the official lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas tree, which I mentioned a month ago when it first arrived on site.
 
View looking over Radio City and Sixth Avenue from my office. The centre of the action is half a block to the top-left.

 
The lighting of the tree is an annual, televised event. It took me close to an hour just to get these few photos, such was the traffic jam of people.
 
This isn't my shot - I didn't stick around for the lighting (I'll get my own shot of it another time), but here's what it looks like with its 50,000 LED lights. Pretty!

Friday, 6 December 2013 - The subway by night

 
 
During any given day it's madness underground. During the wee hours of the night however, it's a very sleepy place indeed. These were shot around 4am this morning after I left work (big project release this weekend). In the shot on the left there is a staircase heading up to street level out of shot. Two people were sleeping half way up the stairs, one of whom I disturbed on my way down as I tried to avoid them. He grabbed for his can of beer, took a gulp, and went straight back to sleep hehe.
 
In other news, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was held, well on Thanksgiving Day last week when we were in San Antonio. The parade is a huge annual event that I'm hoping to see next year since we've been away for the last two Thanksgivings. Anyway, the parade features mammoth balloons such as Barney here, but strong winds almost cancelled them this year. In the end they apparently went ahead regardless. The reason for caution was after this happened to poor old Barney due to high winds back in 1997 hehe (note the streetlight at the bottom of this shot).

Tuesday, 10 December 2013 - The white stuff

 
 
This was the view from our apartment window this morning: the usual rush hour traffic, the usual cacophony of car horns, and the usual piles of trash bags all over the sidewalk (which New York is apparently renowned for). Something not so usual though - snow! This isn't the first dusting of the season but it is the heaviest so far. This is the tail-end of a bitterly-cold winter storm that has dumped ice and snow throughout the country over the last several days, even in Texas. The best is yet to come though - there's another goody forecast for the weekend.

Thursday, 12 December 2013 - The New York winter

 
This is our second winter in New York, and much like the last one, it's bloody chilly! New York seems to have funny extremes of temperatures between summer and winter for a coastal city. The summer days regularly push 36 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit), and as you can see on Monday its forecast to get down to a low of -17 Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit). Geez.
 

Friday, 13 December 2013 - Mexi's

 
 
Freezing or not I'm still cycling to work every day. This is looking north along Fifth Avenue adjacent to Central Park; always manic with traffic at the best of times but always good fun to cycle down as a result. For example, yesterday I exchanged words with a bus driver right about here after he cut me up hehe, but today it was complete gridlock.
 
And here's why. Hundreds and hundreds of Mexicans marching along 59th Street blocking Fifth as part of some parade or festival or something or other. I tried asking a few of them what this was all about but none of them seemed able to speaka da English. The cops didn't have much of a clue either. They look warm don't they.
 
After ten minutes of this I carried on, and had Fifth Avenue to myself for a change.

Saturday, 14 December 2013 - 1,000 miles of winter

 
I've just noticed most of this page has been about the weather. Well today is no different :) Yet another large winter storm is wreaking havoc across the country, delaying flights and causing spectacular pile-ups. This particular storm system stretches about a 1,000 miles from west out past Chicago to the east coast here in New York, and it's dumping whopping great amounts of snow.

 
 
First Avenue (our nearest major avenue) looks like a mud bath...
 
The bicycle lane is practically a skating rink (as this guy was finding out)...
 
And the sidewalks aren't much better.

 
 
Snow ploughs have been going at it all day, salting and gritting the roads as they go. But it's coming down so hard that before long the roads are white again and cars are sliding all over the place.
 
Even the buses have been fitted with chains.
 
This guy was clearing the sidewalk when I set out, and when I came back past about an hour later he was clearing it again.

 
 
And my old favourite (one of them) - Fifth Avenue. Also a mud bath.
 
Rain, hail, or shine - Central Park is always a hub of activity.

 
 
Even the cycle-cabs weren't deterred hahaha! Idiots.
 
So, good times all round really.

 
 
By the time I was done my nose had one of these hanging from it too.
 
According to my little weather app it's -3 C (27 F) out there at the moment but with the wind chill it feels like -8 (18). Too much for this cabbie who went for a skate and slammed into the side of a parked minivan hehe. It was a good shot too - hard enough to rip the van's tyre from its rim against the curb. Initially this was going to be Kristina and my final cold-ass winter before relocating down south, where winter pretty much means wearing two layers instead of one. However we've decided to delay that plan by a year which I'll talk about later. We're suckers for punishment.

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Page Comments


The Chicago pizza looks more like a quiche to me lol
hope you got to Texas ok
- Jen